Pragmata – Review

Pragmata as I understand was a hotly anticipated title that gamers have been waiting for since its initial announcement back in 2020. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’d been abscent from the general hype that this game had garnered, I vaguely remembered its announcement but had long forgotten of its existence until its feature in a Nintendo partner showcase earlier this year, to which I thought “Hey that looks fairly unique, I may have to pick that up” and I’m grateful to my past self that picking this game up is exactly what I chose to do. But lets answer the age old question, is it a ten though?

“I am your Father”

Perhaps I missed the general buzz surrounding this game, due to becoming a real life Dad myself. Pragmata finds you investigating a lunar base where you’ll find out very quickly not all is as it seems, you’ll play as hugh who handles all the shooting of the various enemies you’ll encounter and meet an andriod Pragmata who you proudly name Diana.

Diana join’s you for the rest of your journey on your back adding more tactical depth in combat as she hacks enemies with on screen puzzles that you, the player can use to expose enemy week points and lay devestating effects upon your attackers. It makes for very unique combat, that as the game gets more and more frantic and truthfully never gets stale as the game continually throws more hacking abilities, suit mods and weapons that you can experiment with.

Albeit unique, whats incredible about this combat and gameplay style, is just how seemless and immediately gratifying it is to pull off, I found there was little to no learning phase with the game explaining everything very clearly as changes and new mechanics were introduced.

In fact it was so seamless that I wasn’t actually realising how instantly good I was with the combat because I was so drawn in by this adoptive Father and Daughter relationship, thats only further enhanced by the fact that you feel utterly alone in the world and tone the game presents, making you even more laser focused on the relationship between the 2 protagonists that the game fosters.

I was very quickly engrossed by this narrative direction, a very early scene where Hugh bestows the Pragmatas name Diana, gave me flashbacks to when my own daughters name was chosen. If you’re not fortunate to be a Mum or Dad, you maybe don’t know how special it feels to name a little human being all your own, but this scene captures the emotional elements of this real life moment beat for beat.

REM-arkable collecting

If theres anything I love doing in a video game its collecting things, and I was surprised just how much there is in Pragmata to collect. Pragmata is fairly linear but you are encouraged to return to areas throughout your adventure to find the likes or Borderlands style loot boxes which will include the likes of modifiers that give perks to you during combat (and theres some really interesting ones that can really give you the upper hand) to loot boxes that involve currency that you can use to upgrade your general stats and level up your weapons, Where the combat is concerned, whilst I unlocked everything in my first playthrough, I finished the adventure immediately wanting to dive in to a second playthrough to explore further loadouts and weapon and mod combinations, which is something I will definetely be doing.

Loot boxes can also include currency for your robot friend called cabin who finds their home in the Shelter, which is your main base in the game (but more on that later), you can use the currency to play Bingo cards which can unlock various items such as cosmetic costumes for Hugh and Diana amongst furrher mods and in game items. It feels like at every corner of this game, the developers were providing genuine incentive to explore and experiment, it gives the game a breadth of content that alot of modern games severely lack.

What’s perhaps some of my favourite collectables though is the ones that really create the immersion in the narrative and build the world around you. Littered across the game are holograms that show past scenes with people who once occupied the base, theres tablets where you can read employee conversations and notes, building further on the mystery surrounding the story akin to Bioshock’s audio recordings, theres even hidden areas behind hologram walls which pretty much blend in to the environment and are so easy to walk past, you’ll feel a great sense of accomplishment when find them and reap some generous rewards.

I notice I’m making a lot of comparisons to Xbox 360/PS3 games and thats because it feels like an extremely well polished game from this era, but that doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t successfully create its own identity. Even through its collectables it does something very much its own. Whats perhaps the best collectable doesn’t really benefit your gameplay but it absolutely pulls on your heartstrings. Each area has collectables called REM’s which are Earth memorys you can take back to the shelter as gifts for Diana, things such as Basketballs and Crayons, which she will play with and ask questions about everytime you bring something new back, the way the game cleverly captures the sheer wonder of a young child getting to grips with the world is honestly beautiful and I couldn’t wait to get back to the shelter to give Diana the various gifts I found.

A Pragmatic challenge

I maybe should have prefaced this review with the fact that I’m not particularly skilled in action games like Pragmata, which is why I usually avoid games of this nature, though I was fairly surprised just how fair Pragmata’s challenge is balanced. You’ll often be fighting ginormous bosses (all of which are really fun btw) amongst enemies that are invisible and ones that have ninja style quick attacks amongst a huge variety of others. Those who are more casual action gamers such as myself shouldn’t find any frustration or find themselves seriously stuck, but thats not to say for those who want a serious challenge that you can’t decide to find it – because it’s absolutely there.

You’ll find Red zones which require keys to access across the game’s zones that are effectively combat challenges that will lock you in a room with a horde of enemies, these can be really fun and get fairly wild but they house some of the best mods and upgrades in the game if you’re brave enough to take them on.

Back in the Shelter as you progress through your adventure you’ll also unlock training challenges that can provide a myriad of different objectives such as combat challenges with basic weapons and surprisingly platforming style challenges that involve traversing across a labyrinth to get to the end in a specified time.

In fact this was one of the surprising elements of Pragmata, within combat you can use Hughes thrusters to dodge enemy attacks, but Pragmata extends the use of this mechanic to extend in to some actually pretty darn decent platforming to hover across to areas within the main story and to create traversal challenges, it really helps to break up the action, and prevents the game from just devolving in to a repetative bullet sponge sort of affair.

Those who complete the story will also find an unbelivable level of post-game content, thats far more than just the extra difficulty mode and new game plus options that you unlock, and believe me the hardest difficulty really ups the challenge for those who find the normal difficulty a breeze.

“Hugh”ge areas

So you’re on a Lunar base, and the start of the game places you in that a-typical grey corridored air-locked sort of environment, it works really well for placing you in tight spaces with enemys, making for the need for quick reflexes if you want to make your enemies more vulnerable during hacking sequences.

My expectations were subverted very quickly though upon entering Sector 2, the 5 sectors you’ll find across the game all have their own unique thematic and style, theres far more diversity in the environments you’ll explore compared to what I originally envisioned. The small corridors can lead in to fairly substantial sized areas with lots of places to explore and divert to from the main path. Upon finishing a sector I was excited to see where the next sector would take me, and I was always rather surprised to end up where I did.

The big environments are a fairly sizeable test on the new Switch 2 hardware, and to be truthful it runs the game fairly well. The game on Switch 2 opts to use an unlocked frame rate, meaning that likely you’ll see a dip in frame-rate in some of these larger environments and more intense battles across the game but it never dropped below 30fps in my experience other than one particularly intensive encounter in the last sector of the game (which credit to the Switch 2, there was a lot happeni g all at once). Sure theres not the graphical fidelity you’ll find playing on a PS5 or Series X but I don’t feel that detracts from just how immersive this game is and if like me, you’ll struggle to put this game down, the ability to take it on the go is a great trade off. If you’re an achievement hunter also, you’ll find them here on the Switch 2 version built in to the game itself, which I thought was a nice touch, if like me you likw the challenge achievements can present but aren’t to bothered about publicly gloating about them amongst your friends.

Is it a Ten though?

I’ve tried to write a fairly concise review of my time with Pragmata thus far, but that’s a rather difficult challenge to achieve. No amount of words can truely sum up the depth this game provides, I was in floods of tears at points where the game perfectly captures the joys of a whimsical child with so much passion to learn whilst equally representing some of the hardships attached with parenthood. I feel the game likely would have stood in its own right if it had focused purely on its unique combat to carry you through the game, but Pragmata extends itself far further than I ever imagined it could with a plethora of modes, loadout customisations, exploration, challenges, unlockables and gameplay variety. Its truely a swiss army knife of gaming and I would urge that anyone gives it a shot, because like me I think you’ll find yourself surprisingly captivated by what Pragmata has to offer.

So yes in case you hadn’t already detected my emphatic high regard for Pragmata, yes it’s absolutely a 10, Pragmata is probably the strongest release we’ve seen in 2026 and has the potential to be the strongest.

It’s a 10/10

• Unique and skillfull combat
• Engaging narrative that is full of emotional depth
• Full of collectables, upgrades extra challenges and modes
• Exceptional level of post-game content
• Plenty of replayability with encouraged experimentation of combat loadouts
• Accessible and balanced challenge
• Surprisingly varied environments
• Switch 2 performance holds up fairly well